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Why Reciting the Qur’an Is A Miracle In Itself | Ramadan Reflections
What happens when Allah speaks? The Qur’an is more than words—it’s a miracle that shakes the heavens, makes angels faint, and revives souls. Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy explains the power of Allah’s words and why no one can change the Qur’an—but the Qur’an can change you.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
00:00All praise and glory be to Allah in the manner that He deserves, and may His finest peace
00:10and blessings be upon Muhammad, His servant and His messenger, and upon all those who adhere to his guidance after him. May we be among the best of those who do so.
00:23So when the great scholar Malik ibn Dinar, rahimahullah, his students would recite to
00:30him, he would remark after the recitation and say, "Isma'u ila ma yaqulu as-sadiq min
00:38fawqi al-'arsh. Listen, listen to what the Most Truthful has said from above His throne, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala."
00:51How often do we think of the Qur'an when we listen like that? I want to begin by inviting you all to permit yourselves to let the weight of that reality
01:03sink in. Have you ever thought about how a powerless, temporary, fleeting creature
01:16like the human being could ever be capable of restating the words of the all-powerful, eternal, supreme being, Allah?
01:31This is something that is in reality pure grace, an undeserved, unattainable gift. It is a miracle that we perform all the time from His bounty. Reciting the Qur'an is a miracle.
01:45This is why when Allah 'Azza wa Jall said, "Wa laqad yassarna al-Qur'ana lil-dhikri fahal min muddakir?" We have certainly made the Qur'an easy. We have facilitated it to be recalled, to be recited, to be remembered.
02:00So is anyone willing to take heed? After Allah said that, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Radi Allahu 'anhu, commented and said, "Lawla
02:09an yassarahu Allah 'ala lisani al-adamiyyin mastata'a ahadu min al-khalqi an yatakallama bi-kalimuallah? Were it not for the fact that Allah had facilitated it on the tongues of the children of Adam,
02:24no one of the creation would be capable on their own of speaking the words of Allah.
02:32How does that even make sense? You know, if—and I don't have a better example, I wish I did—but if an eagle from
02:42the eagles of the Lehigh Valley, not the Philadelphia Eagles, the real eagles, the birds, or a lamb or a goat were to stand in front of you and give a charismatic speech, you would be blown
02:55away. Why? Because animals don't speak human language, right? The distance between the human and anything of the creation, including the human and Allah,
03:06is far greater than the distance between the animal and the human being. So how can it be that humans can say God's words? That's the idea.
03:21In fact, it is even beyond us to even hear God's words. In the hadith of Abdullah al-Mas'ud, narrated by Abu Dawud and others, the Prophet, Sallallahu
03:28'alayhi wa Sallam, said, when Allah first speaks the revelation, speaks it to whom?
03:38To the archangel. You hear a rattling in the skies like the dragging of massive chains against boulders.
03:47Imagine you have these big chains being dragged against rocks. That rattling is what? That is the fear of the angels that are hearing Jibril being spoken to by Allah, Subhanahu
04:00wa Ta'ala. And ultimately they pass out and they remain unconscious, the angels, until Jibril, 'alayhi assalam, reaches them.
04:13And then when Jibril reaches them, they revive and they say to Jibril, "What has your Lord said?"
04:25So Jibril says to them, "Allah has said the truth. He has spoken to me some truth. He is the source of all good and all truth. Everything he says is true.
04:39The Most Truthful speaker, what he says from above his throne, so he says the truth." And so the angels begin to chant, "It is the truth. It is the truth.
04:54Our Lord only speaks truth. Of course, it's truth." This is the idea that I want to begin with our series together in Ramadan. Salim ibn Maymun al-Khawas, he said once, "I said to myself one day,
05:06O soul"—he's speaking to himself— "Iqra' al-Qur'an ka'annaka sama'tihi awwal ma takallama bihi Allah.
05:20Read the Qur'an as if you were hearing it at the very first time Allah spoke it.
05:31Fa ja'at al-halawa. And then suddenly the sweetness came." So whether you are reading your Qur'an throughout the day or you are glancing, of course, on
05:43airplane mode, but glancing at your translation during Taraweeh, this is of utmost importance. The first step is to realize what it means to have revelation in front of you—
05:54a secret gets revealed. Allah has revealed to you this secret. He is the one speaking. Even in translation, it's still His message, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. Begin with that. "Wa innahu la kitabun 'aziz."
06:09This will be the second point. Allah says, "And it is a mighty book." What does it mean? A mighty book? Why does Allah 'Azza wa Jall call the Qur'an mighty? Many reasons. The first of them is that it is mightier than to be overtaken, mightier than to be distorted,
06:24mightier than to be corrupted, mightier than to be changed. "Wa innahu la kitabun 'azizun la yateehi al-batilu min bayni yadayhi wa la min khalfihi." The verse continues to explain itself, and it says a mighty book that no falsehood can
06:38approach it from in front or from behind, from any angle, okay? And this too is a miracle. How did the Qur'an reach us? Think about that.
06:53Why did anything—why did nothing else reach us from 1400 years ago? Why is there no other piece of literature? Because it's not supposed to reach us. Were it not for the fact that Allah took it upon Himself to guarantee its preservation,
07:04if it were normal and typical, we would have had other writings from 1400 years ago. Nothing exists but this book. "Inna nah nu anzalna al-thikr wa inna lahu la-hafidhun."
07:16We sent this book down to you and We have guaranteed its protection. And by the way, it was not even written 1400 years ago, was it? It was not.
07:31It was documented in the lives of the sahaba, pulled together. Each of them had a bit of it, right? "Bal huwa ayatun bayyinatun fi suduri allatheena utu al-'ilm." Rather, they are clear signs of God— every verse in the Qur'an—that are found in the chests of those We endowed with sacred
07:44knowledge, not written. Nothing else was preserved in the chests, decentralized. We still have it. That's another miracle. What a mighty book—cannot be overcome.
07:58Even in the authentic hadith where Allah 'Azza wa Jall said to the Prophet, Sallallahu 'alayhi wa Sallam, "Wa anzaltu 'alayka kitaban la yaghsilu hu al-ma' taqra'uhu nai'man wa yaqdhah:" "O Muhammad, know that I have sent down upon you a book that the water of the oceans cannot
08:12wash away, that you are to recite it—meaning live by it, follow along by night and by day." This is the first meaning of a mighty book.
08:25Another meaning of "kitabun 'aziz" is that it is mightier than to fail at improving the lives of whoever it encounters.
08:36This is my takeaway, your takeaway from tonight: The Qur'an—nobody can change the Qur'an, and the Qur'an can change anybody.
08:43That's of the beauty of the miracle of this book. It can change absolutely anything. Whatever it comes in contact with, it will not fall
08:55short. It will not fail. It is 'aziz. This is why al-Hasan al-Basri, rahimahullah, used to say about this, "Wallahi ma duna al-Qur'ani min ghina wa la ba'dahu min faqa.
09:09I swear to you, without the Qur'an, you will never reach your goal. And once you have the Qur'an, you will never remain unfulfilled. It is enough for whatever the void is."
09:22And one final ayah quickly as we close: Allah, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, said, "Wa law anna Qur'anan suyyirat bihi al-jibalu aw quti'at bihi al-ardu aw kulla ma biha al-mawta.
09:33Say to them, O Muhammad, Sallallahu 'alayhi wa Sallam, if there were ever a recital that could render the mountains to rubble and crack the earth in half and address your dead ancestors that
09:47died centuries ago—meaning what? If any recital would be capable of doing it, it would have been the Qur'an. The Qur'an could have done this.
10:00But why doesn't the Qur'an do this? It was not meant for this. If every person who recited the Qur'an had superpowers, he could do mountain demolition, right? And he could sort of rip the earth open and he could speak to the deceased.
10:12That wouldn't be a test. But instead, Allah chose what? Instead of rendering the mountains to rubble, it takes the stoniest hearts and returns them
10:21to softness, to purity, to innocence. Instead of ripping the earth, puncturing the earth's crust, it rips open these eyes that
10:32have been sealed for decades, the hearts that have been sealed shut with people's crimes. Instead of addressing the dead, it revives the souls that are dead.
10:43And so we've said much, but that will be our first step—to realize the weight of what it is. And so we've said much, but that will be our first step to realize the weight of what it means to have Allah's miraculous word in our lives.
10:56And that nobody will ever be able to change a letter of the Qur'an, but the Qur'an can change us inside and out. I say this, and I ask Allah to forgive me and you, and Allah knows best.
11:08And peace and blessings of Allah be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon his family and companions.
